Mungyo Gallery lightfastness home test!!!

[Mira88]

Hi guys,

When I started using oil pastels and especially Mungyo Gallery a year ago, I got really curious whether they really are lightfast because this info is not available anywhere.



So December 2018 I started my lightfastness home test - such test was described by Ken Leslie and some of Wetcanvas oil pastelists conducted those tests years ago - for example, this link proves Pentels are not lightfast (no surprise, but still cool experiment) and this one shows photos where after a year test Van Gogh OPs proved to have good lightfastness and Cray-Pas Expressionist - decent lightfastness, though not perfect.

By the way, in Ken Leslie's test from his book about Oil Pastels published 30 years ago, only Sennelier demonstrated perfect lightfastness. Some colors even in Holbein and Neopastels fades, but just a few.

Anyway, my test went on from December 16, 2018 to October 31, 2019 and after 10 months most colors of Mungyo Gallery didn't change color. At that moment I only had 48 colors from the main set + extra 4 colors from the full set.



But one color, Light Mauve (#255) turned blue-grey. Also four other colors got a little pale, just a bit. Btw, all the numbers written with a pen vanished completely so I wrote them against the colors that changed:


Also some of the colors turned a little pale as well:


I live in St. Petersburg which cannot boast lots of sunlight, but my windows are facing south so I think this test is pretty reliable.

I would like to do a new home test for checking how Pentel, my other light colors of Mungyo Gallery and Sakura Specialist would fare. I know pinks, violets, orange/beige, some blues are prone to fading, so it will be fun to check it and compare the results.

PS: I've also tested my Holbeins, Neopastels and Sakura Specialist, but as I only had small sets of those, they were all bright colors which are of course not going to fade, with all those official ratings the manufacturers provide. But soon I'll get the full set of Sakura Specialist and will check how light colors with lower LF ratings would perform.

If you want to see my instagram post with different text and photos about this test, it's here.

[SarahY]

Thanks so much for doing this and posting the results, Mira!

It's very disappointing; I expect some fading in cheaper brands when it comes to your pale oranges and pinks, but there are SO many cheap, easily available blue and green pigments that there's really no excuse for blues and greens to be fading this day and age.

Van Goghs are my new workhorse oil pastel and I don't see me buying Mungyos again now.

[tuscanny]

Thanks Mira!

[terriks]

Thanks for posting your test results, Mira!

Looks to me like several of the Mungyo saw some kind of fading or color shift, some worse than others. I've been adding more to my Neopastel collection in the last year and they seem to have better lightfastness.

I've never played with the van Goghs, but the results are impressive from the other tester here. I am surprised that the student grade Sakura Cray-Pas Expressionist had pretty good results, as well, from his tests. Great info to have!

[raizes]

Good experiment and thanks for posting the results.

[Mira88]

Glad you found this useful, guys

Terri, yes Neopastels should have better lightfastness. But I think Mungyos are still not bad. We are not going to expose our paintings to direct sunlight anyway

Originally Posted by SarahY

It's very disappointing; I expect some fading in cheaper brands when it comes to your pale oranges and pinks, but there are SO many cheap, easily available blue and green pigments that there's really no excuse for blues and greens to be fading this day and age.

Van Goghs are my new workhorse oil pastel and I don't see me buying Mungyos again now.

Oh, Sarah, I think Mungyos are still a brand to use, because you aren't going to display your artworks in the sunlight of course it's surprising they didn't use better pigments as you say they could easily do that. Still, Mungyo Gallery is not a typical student grade non-lightfast brand; its lightfastness isn't perfect, but not too bad either.

But if you have a chance to order Van Gogh open stock, then I see why you consider them your workhorse you mostly need specific colors for your works, so buying OP sticks open stock is the best

[terriks]

Oh, I still love working with Mungyos. They are still nice quality for the money, IMO. I have never been happy with not being able to get individual sticks on open stock, which I can with Neopastels and Senns. In the long run, that actually saves money, as opposed to having to buy sets just to replace a couple of grays or browns.

Light fastness matters to a degree, but it's not a deal breaker to me. I can't see a time where I'd ever sell any of my stuff - this is a hobby, and I only possess moderate skills, so I continue to learn and enjoy it. Should I ever really want to frame and display some of my better stuff, it would not be in direct sunlight - and even in a very bright room, a light coat of a UV spray wouldn't hurt some dried-down OP's.

That said, I do enjoy trying other brands, and if the van Goghs are comparable to Neopastels and sell open stock, that's of interest, since they seem to have better light-fastness, which can be taken as a quality issue.